brother, can you spare a korea policy?

the message was clear: we have no policy. [Emphasis in the original.] The president wants help from the Chinese, South Koreans, Russians, Japanese, etc. etc. etc. Can anybody help? Does anyone have a policy we can borrow? Does anyone have another question? Next question.

It would be difficult to exaggerate the growing mixture of anger, despair, disgust, and fear actuating the foreign policy community in Washington as the attack on Iraq moves closer, and the North Korea crisis festers with no coherent U.S. policy. We get the phone calls and e-mails from all over this Administration, Capitol Hill, the think tanks, and even fellow scribblers. We've never seen anything like it, and we've been here since 1966.

This is a bad situation, getting worse. And the unavoidable truth is that we don't have a policy and because of that we're letting it hang.

Update:The Agonist dissents: "I think there is a policy with Korea. There is some evidence pointing to it now (here, here and here.) Of course, Bush can't say there is a policy for domestic reasons. Mostly because the policy is a hybrid of Clinton's: appeasement (I mean negotiations) and quid pro quos."